Chris Penn’s funnay brother from another, Jonah Hill, talked up his upcoming reincarnation of 21 Jump Street to MTV, mentioning that the flick has a part open for the show’s original cover boy Johnny Depp. Seeing Hill and Depp cutting up togeths on screen would not be un-rad in my estimation…

“We have an awesome thing for [Johnny] Depp, if he’ll do it,” Hill enthused. “I don’t know if he will or not, [but] it’s going to be rad!”

Hill also said that the cast to his 21JS will be chockful of famous funny types, but didn’t specify who. Cue Apatow mental flipbook. If you’re a dateless 8th grader reading this on a Saturday night, 21 Jump Street was a popular TV series about undercover cops aka narcs infiltrating a high school as students.

Regarding his rumored-then-ixnayed role in Transformers 2, Hill also let it be known that it was he who dumped the ‘bots and not vice versa. Seems he wants to avoid being typecast by audiences/execs as the chubby, stoned, prankster sidekick (who wouldn’t?)…

“I just think like I have to prove myself more in what I’m doing now, making comedies and stuff before I do the big action movie or something, you know? I’m not proven yet,” Hill confessed. “I’ve only been in one movie that people have seen that I’ve been the lead in so like, um, I could still suck in people’s minds, they don’t know yet!”

Hill’s inclusion in Bay’s gazillion dollar-grossing sequel would have offered him unparalleled mainstream exposure, but, at least on the surface, the role seemed to have shades of Chunk and “Bullet holes?!?” written all over it. Obviously, post-Superbad Hill has aspirations mirroring his peers, and–not to play odds with cool talents–it will be interesting to see who ends up with the bigger film career as a lead actor between him, Seth Rogen and Michael Cera.

Discuss: Do you think Depp will pop up in Hill’s 21 Jump Street or will he be reluctant to revisit his Tiger Beat roots?